Sexuality and Greco-Roman Religions

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 August 2018) | Viewed by 23002

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
School of Humanities and Social Science, The University of Newcastle, CallaghanUniversity Drive, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This is a call for expressions of interest in contributing to a Special Issue on Sexuality and Greco-Roman Religion for the peer-reviewed journal, Religions.

The overarching aim of this volume is to bring scholars from across the globe to engage with this topic from a variety of methodologies and theoretical perspectives. The creation of innovative approaches to the role of sexuality in Greek and Roman religion, cult, worship and belief is the focus. As such, colleagues are invited to consider the topic from new, even revolutionary perspectives, to unearth gaps in – or to complement – established scholarship. Interdisciplinary and comparative approaches are particularly welcome, as are studies of evidence traditionally not aligned with either sexuality or religion or both. The purpose of the volume is to establish the topic as a significant component of ancient cultural studies, and to showcase scholarship that forms a dialogue with related areas of classical studies, including literature, politics, and society.

Topics may include:

  • Temple prostitution, and related academic debates
  • Fertility cults
  • Sacred narratives and sexual motifs
  • Gods and goddesses of sexuality
  • Imported cults
  • Philosophy, sex and religion
  • Inter-species studies and mythology
  • Festivals and the carnivalesque
  • Gender inversion
  • Religion, sexuality / sex, and magic

For details about Religions, please see
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/about

Please contact the guest editor for further information.

Prof. Marguerite Johnson
Guest Editor

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Greece
  • Rome
  • sexuality
  • gender
  • religion
  • religion and sexuality in antiquity

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 298 KiB  
Article
Pausanian Classification or Socratic Participation: Theologizing the Plurality of Erotic Praxis in Plato’s Symposium
by Philip Krinks
Religions 2018, 9(9), 263; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9090263 - 3 Sep 2018
Viewed by 3866
Abstract
Read theologically, Plato’s Symposium is an exercise in doxology: how Eros is to be praised. Pausanias observes that, since Eros is not one, a unitary praise will be inadequate. Proposing a focus on praxis, he classifies erotic praxes, and praises one, in a [...] Read more.
Read theologically, Plato’s Symposium is an exercise in doxology: how Eros is to be praised. Pausanias observes that, since Eros is not one, a unitary praise will be inadequate. Proposing a focus on praxis, he classifies erotic praxes, and praises one, in a synthesis of contemporary convention, sophistic rationality, social responsibility and polytheistic fidelity. Against this Socrates praises erotic praxis as one of a plurality of desires mediating between mortals and an otherwise transcendent good. Desire which is specifically erotic involves a praxis of (pro)creation through attention to beauty. In this praxis mortals participate in immortality and the divine. Pausanias’ praise is seriously offered. However, lacking a participatory element, it delivers an underwhelming doxology, making Eros at best an instrument of a sophistically constructed virtue ethic to which his polytheism is ambiguously connected. It is the philosophical theology of Socrates, which, praising Eros as a mediator enabling participation in the divine realm, and offering itself as an analogous form of mediation, is able to be consummated liturgically. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sexuality and Greco-Roman Religions)
22 pages, 2227 KiB  
Article
“Not as the Gentiles”: Sexual Issues at the Interface between Judaism and Its Greco-Roman World
by William Loader
Religions 2018, 9(9), 258; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9090258 - 28 Aug 2018
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 18279
Abstract
Sexual issues played a significant role in Judaism’s engagement with its Greco-Roman world. This paper will examine that engagement from the Hellenistic Greco-Roman era to the end of the first century CE. In part, sexual issues were a key element of the demarcation [...] Read more.
Sexual issues played a significant role in Judaism’s engagement with its Greco-Roman world. This paper will examine that engagement from the Hellenistic Greco-Roman era to the end of the first century CE. In part, sexual issues were a key element of the demarcation between Jews and the wider community, alongside such matters as circumcision, food laws, the sabbath keeping, and idolatry. Jewish writers, such as Philo of Alexandria, made much of the alleged sexual profligacy of their Gentile contemporaries, not least in association with wild drunken parties, same-sex relations, and pederasty. Jews, including the emerging Christian movement, claimed the moral high ground. In part, however, matters of sexuality were also areas where intercultural influence was evident, such as in the shift in the Jewish tradition from polygyny to monogyny, but also in the way Jewish and Christian writers adapted the suspicion, and sometimes rejection, of the passions that were characteristic of some of the popular philosophies of their day, seeing each other as allies in their moral crusade. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sexuality and Greco-Roman Religions)
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